Are you planning to set up an e-commerce website using WordPress, or sell products worldwide? If so, then it’s a good idea to think about providing users with currency conversion.
Currency converting tools let your web visitors convert international currency amounts to their home currency at the purchase or checkout phase. It also allows customers to view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own home currency.
One great advantage of adding currency conversion is that it lets your customers see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, it’s easy to add currency conversion via a plugin to currency conversion to your WordPress web site via a plugin, allowing your visitors to quickly and easily understand the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – WP Free Currency Converter
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique converter tooltip. And, it’s free!
This currency conversion plugin includes advanced features like:
- Inline converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates and FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with various e-store plugins such as WooCommerce & Shopp.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Full support for language translations
Important: This plugin needs your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP on your server. Alternatively, ask your webhosting support team to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WordPress dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking the “Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your dashboard navigation menu …
The plugin settings area provides a number of configuration options …
For example, you can select your base currency from a dropdown menu. The default currency is ‘USD’ …
You can also select a data provider from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default provider is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also select another option, like European Central Bank or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’, you will need to enter an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how frequently you would like to update the exchange rates by selecting an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (like WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, just ignore this section …
Configure the remainder of the settings to suit your preferences and click Save Changes when done …
After you have finished configuring your plugin settings, you can add currency conversion to any WP post using shortcodes.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into posts, pages and widgets with no technical skills using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you retail a product for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to display this price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To do this, you will need to add the following shortcode into your page content …
Note: You can also insert amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 6.95, 47.00, 544.97, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode will look when added to a post or page …
After the post or page has been published, your converted currency amount will then appear like this …
Using the above example, let’s now convert the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
The example below shows how the above shortcode appears when added to a page …
After publishing the information, the converted currency amounts will then appear like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you would like to specify a different base currency than the one set as the default.
For example, say you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to customers from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below now shows how the shortcode looks when you add it to a post …
After publishing the content, the converted currency will then appear like this …
Using The Plugin Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your site’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets from your WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget options as shown below (add any currency codes you would like to display on your widget separated by commas), and click Save to save your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now appear on your site’s sidebar with the options you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify a symbol of your choice to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can change the symbol in the Multiple Separator settings section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices with the forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you change the symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As stated earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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